`Many people assume that marijuana was made illegal through some kind of process involving scientific, medical, and government hearings; that it was to protect the citizens from what was determined to be a dangerous drug.
The actual story shows a much different picture. Those who voted on the legal fate of this plant never had the facts, but were dependent on information supplied by those who had a specific agenda to deceive lawmakers. You’ll see below that the very first federal vote to prohibit marijuana was based entirely on a documented lie on the floor of the Senate.
You’ll also see that the history of marijuana’s criminalization is filled with:
- Racism
- Fear
- Protection of Corporate Profits
- Yellow Journalism
- Ignorant, Incompetent, and/or Corrupt Legislators
- Personal Career Advancement and Greed
These are the actual reasons marijuana is illegal.’
`A man was convicted of murder after witnesses testified that he relied on his cat’s behavior to decide whether the victim deserved to die. [..]
Prosecution witnesses, many of them drug users with criminal records, testified that Butsch said he relied on his cat, Sam, to determine who was good and who deserved to die. When Sam refused to go near the sleeping Vavricka, Butsch shot him, they said.
Butsch’s lawyer argued that the witnesses framed Butsch and made up the cat story.’
`Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has suggested that those who deface freeways with graffiti should have their thumbs cut off on television.
Goodman, appearing Wednesday on the “Nevada Newsmakers” television show, said, “In the old days in France, they had beheading of people who commit heinous crimes.
“You know, we have a beautiful highway landscaping redevelopment in our downtown. We have desert tortoises and beautiful paintings of flora and fauna. These punks come along and deface it.
“I’m saying maybe you put them on TV and cut off a thumb,” the mayor added. “That may be the right thing to do.”‘
`One of the most significant al-Qaeda members ever captured in Southeast Asia has escaped from a maximum-security US airbase in Afghanistan in a massive “breach of security”.
Omar al-Farouq, who was a lieutenant of Osama Bin Laden and who named Abu Bakar Bashir as the leader of Jemaah Islamiah in Indonesia, is on the run and believed to have returned to the safety of his people on the Afghan/Pakistan border.
News of the escape was confirmed as Indonesia denied an automatic remission for Abu Bakar Bashir, prompting outrage from Muslims who have accused the Indonesian Government of pandering to Western influence.’
`Officials are trying to determine who’s at fault after tons of concrete was poured down a Windward Oahu sewer pipe and forced raw sewage into several Kailua homes.
Liz Asteriadis suspects a black substance climbing up the walls in her home is the result of sewage that backed into her Windward Cover condominium on Oct 13.
“You could smell what it was right away. It was nasty and my friend Barbara, I called her screaming at 11 o’clock at night. ‘Ahh! We are having a sewer flood,'” Asteriadis said. [..]
The sewage backed up after a city contractor filled several manholes with concrete, thinking they were filling abandoned lines. When they realized they’d plugged Windward Cove’s sewage outlet, they built an emergency pipe. Then they started the difficult process of digging hardened concrete out of the underground system.’
‘A Superior Court judge must decide whether to believe a 21-year-old accused who says he could not have committed a sexual assault because his penis is too big. [..]
Earlier in the trial, which has been in and out of court for months, a urologist testified that Beutling’s penis is in the top 5% range for size in comparison to the doctor’s other patients. [..]
The urologist showed the court a plastic model of a penis approximating the accused’s member at a semi-relaxed state, which measured 8 1/2 inches in length and 6 1/2 inches in girth.
He said a woman who has not given birth might have discomfort or tearing if she had intercourse with a penis that size, especially if she was not sexually aroused.’
`A Japanese high school girl has been arrested for gradually poisoning her mother to the brink of death and keeping a blog of her progress – all done as a grim homage to a serial killer she idolised.
The 16-year-old student is alleged to have laced her mother’s food with increasing doses of thallium, a potent rat poison. Her mother is now in a coma and critically ill.
The girl, who is from rural Shizuoka, in central Japan, was apparently inspired by Briton Graham Young, the notorious Teacup Poisoner of Bovingdon who, in 1962, aged 14, slowly killed his stepmother with what was thought to be the same lethal substance.’
Update: I found another article with text from the poisoning blog.
`On Halloween night, New Orleans will be very, very dark. Well over half the homes on the east bank of New Orleans sit vacant because they still do not have electricity. More do not have natural gas or running water. Most stoplights still do not work. Most street lights remain out.
Fully armed National Guard troops refuse to allow over ten thousand people even to visit their property in the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood. Despite the fact that people cannot come back, tens of thousands of people face eviction from their homes. A local judge told me that her court expects to process a thousand evictions a day for weeks. [..]
Dr. Arjun Sengupta, the United Nations Human Rights Commission Special Reporter on Extreme Poverty, visited New Orleans and Baton Rouge last week. He toured the devastated areas and listened to the evacuees still in shelters and those living out of town with family.
Dr. Sengupta described current conditions as “shocking” and “gross violations of human rights.” The devastation itself is shocking, he explained, but even more shocking is that two months have passed and there is little to nothing being done to reconstruct vast areas of New Orleans. “The US is the richest nation in the history of the world. Why cannot it restore electricity and water and help people rebuild their homes and neighborhoods? If the US can rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq, why not New Orleans?”’
Also worth a read is Ethnic Cleansing, GOP-style.
`The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.
The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.’
`This is the first photograph taken by a microsatellite of another object in space that has ever been released to the general public. The object near the center is the upper stage of a Minotaur I rocket that was used to launch the Experimental Satellite System-11, commonly known as XSS-11. The photograph was taken by the digital “witness camera” aboard XSS-11, a dishwasher-size microsatellite developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory.
XSS-11 was launched in April and has since conducted numerous “proximity operations”—approaching and maneuvering around the spent Minotaur rocket stage at distances as close as 500 meters (the distance at which this photo was taken, about a third of a mile). Over the next year, the spacecraft will rendezvous with several other U.S.-owned dead or inactive objects in space.’
`A female teacher who had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student has been sentenced to five years jail in the Victorian County Court.
Cindy Leanne Howell, who has pleaded guilty to one count of maintaining a sexual relationship with a child under 16, sobbed loudly today after receiving the jail sentence with a minimum term of two-and-a-half years.
The court was told the 36-year-old was employed as an integrated aid teacher at a high school on the Mornington Peninsula and assisted the student with a reading difficulty.
The mother of four began a sexual relationship with him over eight months last year after he started dating her daughter.’
`For 40 exhausting minutes, Wayne Goldsberry battled a buck with his bare hands in his daughter’s bedroom.
Goldsberry finally subdued the five-point whitetail deer that crashed through a bedroom window at his daughter’s home Friday. When it was over, blood splattered the walls and the deer lay dead on the bedroom floor, its neck broken.
Goldsberry was at his daughter’s home when he heard glass breaking. He went back to check on the noise and found the deer.’
`Rampaging youths shot at police and firefighters Thursday after burning car dealerships and public buses and hurling rocks at commuter trains, as eight days of riots over poor conditions in Paris-area housing projects spread to 20 towns.
Youths ignored an appeal for calm from President Jacques Chirac, whose government worked feverishly to fend off a political crisis amid criticism that it has ignored problems in neighborhoods heavily populated by first- and second-generation North African and Muslim immigrants.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin called a string of emergency meetings with Cabinet ministers throughout the day. He told the Senate the government “will not give in” to violence in the troubled suburbs.
“Order and justice will be the final word in our country,” Villepin said. “The return to calm and the restoration of public order are the priority our absolute priority.”‘
`President Bush may be burdened with the world’s problems, but his pockets are pretty light.
It turns out the leader of the free world doesn’t have to worry about carrying all the essentials of the common man.
Bush revealed the contents of his pockets Tuesday to an Argentine newspaper reporter who was interviewing him in advance of a presidential trip to Latin America later this week. [..]
“Es todo,” Bush told the Spanish-speaking reporter, meaning the handkerchief was all. “No dinero, no mas. No wallet.”‘
`Bob Dougherty, 57, of Nederland, said he became stuck to a bathroom toilet seat on which somebody had smeared glue on Oct. 30, 2003, and felt “tremendous panic” when he realized he was stuck.
“They left me there, going through all that stress,” Dougherty told The (Boulder) Daily Camera. “They just let me rot.”
His lawsuit, filed Friday said Dougherty was recovering from heart bypass surgery at the time and thought he was having a heart attack. A store employee who heard him calling for help informed the head clerk via radio, but the head clerk “believed it to be a hoax,” the lawsuit said. [..]
The lawsuit said the toilet seat separated from his skin, leaving abrasions.’
`This series provides the facts and law to illuminate and add depth to the torture debate—not to persuade you to support or oppose it, but to help you formulate your own views on where the acceptable boundaries may lie. We’ve tried to separate facts from analysis, using principally the primary documents made available through government reports, leaks, or Freedom of Information Act requests. The aim is to inform the national conversation about the way America acts in the war against terror.’
Some of the legal memos are scary:
- `The president has the authority to decide that Geneva does not apply.’
- `The war on terror is a “new kind of war” … “in my judgment this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, scrip (i.e., advances of monthly pay) athletic uniforms and scientific instruments.”‘
`Rather than being birthed like a normal child, Chuck Norris instead decided to punch his way out of his mother’s womb. Shortly thereafter he grew a beard. [..]
Chuck Norris’s girlfriend once asked him how much wood a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. He then shouted, “HOW DARE YOU RHYME IN THE PRESENCE OF CHUCK NORRIS!” and ripped out her throat. Holding his girlfriend’s bloody throat in his hand he bellowed, “Don’t fuck with Chuck!” Two years and five months later he realized the irony of this statement and laughed so hard that anyone within a hundred mile radius of the blast went deaf.’
‘During World War I, the British and Americans faced a serious threat from German U-boats, which were sinking allied shipping at a dangerous rate. All attempts to camouflage ships at sea had failed, as the appearance of the sea and sky are always changing. Any color scheme that was concealing in one situation was conspicuous in others. A British artist and naval officer, Norman Wilkinson, promoted a new camouflage scheme that was derived from the artistic fashions of the time, particularly cubism. Instead of trying to conceal the ship, it simply broke up its lines and made it more difficult for the U-boat captain to determine the ship’s course. The British called this camouflage scheme “Dazzle Painting.” The Americans called it “Razzle Dazzle.”‘
with a bunch of cool pictures of large boats painted strangely.
Crazy Finnish people. Jumping out of a balloon with jet engines strapped to their boots.
Maniacs, I tells ya.
(9.5meg Windows Media)
`The Perfect Revenge
Ship A Turd is the perfect way to get back at that know it all co-worker, that idiotic negative feedback leaving Ebayer, or that so called “friend” who you are just plain pissed off at.
The Raunchy Gag Gift
Ship A Turd is great for bachelor/bachelorette parties, draw a name gift occasions, or for whatever other need you may have that you think you should have a nasty, stinky ugly pile of turds for.’
Of all the things I’ve blogged, this is the only one that required me to hide part of the page with another window ’cause I couldn’t bear to look at the pictures long enough to copy and paste some text. Judge for yourself. :)
`More than 80 million Americans suffer from some type of Homosexuality, and one in eight persons need treatment for Homosexuality during his or her lifetime. Homosexuality is not a character flaw; it is neither a “mood” nor a personal weakness that you can change at will or by “pulling yourself together.”
Many healthy men can identify with having some of the symptoms of homosexuality, such as experiencing sexual fantasies about other men; But Homosxuality is diagnosed only when these activities take at least an hour a day, are very distressing, and interfere with daily life.
We encourage you to Learn more specifics about homosexuality from your doctor- The more you know about the illness itself, the more you can do to manage and recover from it.
Hetracil is the world’s most widely prescribed anti-effeminate; it has been prescribed for more than 54 million people worldwide. Chances are, someone you know is getting better because of it. Learn more about how Hetracil works to make you better, so that you can know what to expect while you work toward your recovery.’
Someone has too much time on their hands.
`Someone stole $75,000 worth of bull semen from a Frederick County farm, the sheriff’s office says. Eric Fleming said the six small canisters of frozen semen taken from a liquid nitrogen tank represented four to five years of collection work.
He said he had planned to sell it and use the proceeds to expand his breeding herd of shorthorn beef cattle.
“I’m so depressed about this that I probably will get out of the cattle business,” Fleming said Tuesday.’
`Welcome to Cold War City (population: 4). It covers 240 acres and has 60 miles of roads and its own railway station. It even includes a pub called the Rose and Crown.
The most underpopulated town in Britain is being put on the market. But there will be no estate agent’s blurb extolling the marvellous views of the town for sale: true, it has a Wiltshire address, but it is 120ft underground.
The subterranean complex that was built in the 1950s to house the Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan’s cabinet and 4,000 civil servants in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack is being thrown open to commercial use. Just four maintenance men are left.’
‘A reporter cant keep a straight face after one of his guests turns out to have an unusual voice.’
(3.9meg Windows Media)
Update: now with subtitles.
see it here »
`A Melbourne resident has fought back against two armed intruders, killing one with a sword he seized from his attackers, police said.
A second intruder fled with cuts to his hands and legs after the attempted armed burglary in Melbourne’s south-east early today. [..]
Police said intruders – one of whom was armed with a handgun and the other with a sword – demanded money.
The male occupant was tied up when he arrived home, a police spokesman said.
But one of the occupants, a male aged in his 30s known as Johnny, fought back and grabbed one of his attacker’s weapons, police said.’
`A woman from Herold’s Bay who tried to help a female seal will have to get a new nose after the seal ripped the woman’s nose from her face.
Winnie Swanepoel, head of the SPCA in George, picked Elsie van Tonder’s nose up on the beach and rushed it to hospital, but it could not be surgically reattached to the 49-year-old’s face.’
`”A drunk who claimed he had been raped by a dog was yesterday jailed for 12 months by a judge. Martin Hoyle, 45, was arrested by police after a passing motorist and his girlfriend found a Staffordshire bull terrier, called Badger, having sex with him at the side of a road in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.
Prosecutor Ben Crosland said the couple had stopped to help because they thought Hoyle was being attacked by the animal. But when they got closer they saw that he had his trousers round his ankles, was down on all fours and the dog was straddling him from behind.
“The defendant mumbled something about the dog having taken a liking to him,” said Mr Crosland. “The couple were extremely offended and sickened by what they saw.” Another passing motorist contacted the police and Hoyle was arrested as he walked with the dog down the road.
Hoyle, of East view, Marsh, Huddersfield, told police “I can’t help it if the dog took a liking to me. He tried to rape me.”‘
